


⠓⠕⠏⠑⠀⠋⠁⠊⠞⠓ (hope, faith)

by titC



Series: Lucy [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: A good dog - Freeform, Angst, Brett Mahoney - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Foggy Nelson - Freeform, Gen, Karen Page - Freeform, M/M, Whump, check end notes for details on violence, some giggles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-21 02:15:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17634113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/titC/pseuds/titC
Summary: Bad guys are bad, Matt is both heroic and an idiot, Frank is both an idiot and - you get the idea. The skull gets out.





	⠓⠕⠏⠑⠀⠋⠁⠊⠞⠓ (hope, faith)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Beguile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beguile) for betaing!  
> For my DaredevilBingo prompt _Braille_.

It wasn’t even fully daylight yet when Lucy started nosing Frank’s naked arm. The cold and wet little pokes told him it was time for a walk while the streets were quieter. He sighed and slid out of bed, and when Matt made a confused noise, Frank pulled the heavier blanket at the foot of the bed over him. He settled down under it with a sigh, ready to fall back asleep. Good.

“Out for a walk with Lucy,” Frank said low enough not to fully wake him up. Not that he didn’t deserve it, because those early wake-up calls? Were absolutely Matt’s fault. Lucy had gotten used to going out regularly at night when staying with Matt, when he came back from his night-time rounds on the Kitchen’s rooftops.

But then again, Frank didn’t mind the quiet either. As Lucy trotted in front of him in the streets, he had time to think. The occasional jogger ran past him, garbage trucks stopped and collected trash, but no one bothered him. Too much was eating at his mind – how the shelter’s pit bulls and Zach’s kidnapping and Curt’s warnings and Matt’s contractor case seemed to all merge; if the shelter was safe enough now, how to get it through Matt’s head that he should take better care of himself, whether to get the skull out again for good.

Frank wasn’t sure if it was that he _wanted_ to or that he _needed_ to. He was comfortable with violence, but hadn’t he wanted to leave it all behind? And yet, maybe it was too much part of him now, or maybe it had always been. Maybe the Punisher had always lurked in Frank Castle, and his Pete Castiglione papers would never erase any of that. Sometimes, he didn’t quite know who he’d always been, who he’d become, who he’d never be again. Sometimes, he didn’t know who he wanted to be.

But he knew not to dwell on it too much.

 

The sun was fully up when they got back to the apartment, but Matt was still dozing in bed. He looked comfy, too, so Frank shrugged, put some food in Lucy’s bowl and settled back on the bed to finish his book, something about the history of Louis Braille and his legacy. He hoped Matt didn’t know what it was he’d borrowed at the library. After a while, Matt turned around and extracted an arm from under the covers so he could start drawing lazy patterns over Frank’s chest. Frank smiled, put his hand under his head, flexed his biceps, then remembered that Matt wouldn’t see it. Damn, that had always been a good move before he’d hooked up with a blind guy.

“Morning,” Matt said into his shoulder.

“Morning, sleepyhead.”

“You’re not in bed.”

“Well spotted.” Frank set his book back on the floor and pushed Matt down to put him flat on his back. “You sore?” The little shit wriggled and gave him a wide grin. “ _Red_.”

“A little.”

Okay, so probably more than _a little_ , but less than _can’t move at all and won’t admit it_. All right. “We should call Nelson. We got to plan.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Matt ran his fingers over his bedside table until they bumped into his phone, unplugged it and set it between them on the bed. “Call Foggy,” he said.

“Hey, Matt!” Nelson answered after a few rings. “You staying in this morning?”

“Boo,” Frank said.

“What the – shit, that’s Frank, right? Why are you answering… no, wait, ignore that question. I don’t want to know.”

“I remember you asking lots of questions about my girlfriends, Foggy.”

“That was back when I wasn’t living with the woman of my dreams and you hadn’t hitched up with a guy who could kill me with his pinkie.”

“You jealous, Nelson?” Frank asked.

“I’m sure Marci could slay you in court,” Matt said.

“She can slay everyone in court and you know it. She’s awesome and I love her.”

“See? She’s just like me,” Frank said.

“I hate you both, you know that?” Nelson said. “So, what did you want?”

“Come to Matt’s before work, we got to talk.”

“Wow, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

“And bring those donuts, yeah?” Frank poked Matt with a finger. “What do you call them?”

“Victory donuts,” Matt said.

“Yeah, those. They’re good.”

Nelson sighed. “Victory donuts are supposed to be a Nelson and Murdock thing only. You breaking up with me, Matt? You’re not planning on killing me and hiding my body afterwards, right?”

“Nah. Red here would sulk.”

“Oooh, I’d rate a Murdock Sulk! Fine, I’ll be there in 45. Don’t be naked!” Nelson added before hanging up.

“You can be naked,” Frank said. “I don’t mind.”

“We shared a room. I don’t think it’s me he doesn’t want to see naked.”

“Hey, I look good without clothes.”

“Well, I wouldn’t know, would I?”

Frank took his shirt off and made sure to remind the little shit that he could tell Frank _felt_ good, at least.

 

They were both wearing clothes when Nelson knocked, to preserve his delicate constitution. Matt went to open the door while Frank was busy with Matt’s old, sputtering coffee machine. He’d have to get him a new one. When it started making the right kind of noises, Frank turned around and leaned against the counter to look at Nelson.

“Matt, why is your boyfriend looking at me like he’s plotting my demise?”

“I’m sure he’s not. Right, Frank?”

“No, not _yet_. You want coffee, Nelson?”

“Sure.” Frank crossed his arms and stared at the guy just to make him squirm a little. “Hey, Matty. I have to say, death glare aside, he’s got great arms.” What the fuck? It was working on _Nelson_ , now?

“Yeah, I know, Fogs. You always say I have a knack for finding good-looking people.”

“Of questionable character, Matt. Good-looking people of questionable character. Never ends well for me.”

Matt laughed at that, and Frank had to turn around to poke some more at the coffee machine so Nelson wouldn't see his smile. Reputation to maintain and all that. He got the three mugs ready and brought them to the low table, nudging Lucy a little further away from the donuts box in case she got ideas. “Coffee’s not poisoned, at least,” Frank said as he handed Nelson one of them.

“Well, it’s a start. Neither are the donuts.”

“Good. Here’s yours,” Frank added as he settled next to Matt on the couch. Nelson’s eyebrows rose up when he saw the raised Braille on the mug, but Frank glared to shut him up. He clinked a nail on the embossing for Matt to find it, and Matt made a betrayed face as he wrapped his hands around it.

“Why don’t I get coffee?”

“Chamomile tea is a muscle relaxant. Better for you.”

“Aw.” Nelson was mocking them, Frank knew it.

“Not a word, Foggy,” Matt said, frowning into his tea. Hah, he knew it too.

Frank wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Drink up, Nelson. We got work to do.”

And they started planning.

 

One day and many phone calls later, they were in Nelson, Murdock and Page’s conference room (a big name for a smallish room), waiting for Madani.

“You sure she won’t try to shoot me?” Matt was fidgeting with his tie, tugging on it and making it even less straight than it had been before.

“Probably not.”

“Not very reassuring, Frank.”

“If she tries I’ll punch her for you, Matt,” Karen said from where she was leaning on the door jamb.

“Please don’t, Marci would drag me back to HC&B if she heard about shooting and punching in this office.”

“Or we could recruit Marci as your bodyguard. Oh wait, Agent Madani’s here,” Matt said.

Frank straightened Red’s tie and pretended he didn’t see Karen’s wide smile. Nelson stood up, and Matt’s fingers tightened on the fake samples box.

Once they were all sitting around the table, Madani’s eyes zeroed in on the box. “So this is it?”

She made to take it, but Matt slid it a little closer to him. “There’s more.”

“What do you mean, there’s more?”

“We’ve been trying to put together everything related to what’s happening: Zach Lieberman's kidnapping, the fire near Frank’s – _Pete’s_ shelter, Matt’s case last month…” Nelson glanced out of the window. “We know we’re all possibly watched, so we tried to be as normal as possible. We only asked you to come because you’ve been here before, and it’s at least not more suspicious than it was. But we all tried to find something more, and we have.”

“I’m listening.”

“You remember Curtis, right?” She nodded, and Frank went on. “He still works with vets.Yesterday evening, after work, I went to one of his sessions. I go sometimes, you know? As Pete.” Matt tilted his head just a little in his direction. They weren’t going to hold hands in front of Madani, but Frank still saw it. Felt it. “Curt was the one who warned me first about The Über Alles. He’d told me about them before, and I recognized them when they kidnapped Zach.”

“We know about them already, Castle.”

“Well, remember the CVS fire in the Bronx, a few weeks ago?” Nelson was leaning forward a little as he spoke, while Madani sat ramrod straight. She didn’t want to give anything away. “I asked a friend, NYPD Detective Brett Mahoney, to try and see if they’d arrested anyone for that. They have. Two small-time criminals, part of the dog fighting ring Frank’s shelter rescued the pit bulls from. The same pit bulls that were targeted when the shelter was attacked, and that the chips come from.”

“The phone I… found after that attack and that David Lieberman went through gave us more,” Matt went on. “It had numbers connected to the contractor I defended who kept losing contracts to a company that didn’t fit the criteria set for the call for bids. That same company was the one I defended the shelter against, too. They wanted to acquire and demolish the property to create new office buildings, same as the other properties they bought or tried to buy. So far, they haven’t started doing anything even on estate they bought up to two years ago.”

“Agent Madani, it’s all connected,” Karen said. “I went through the Bulletin archives all day yesterday, and I found more. It’s little things, but… look.” She slid an open folder towards Madani. “Look at the names. I asked Stacy Kim, the Bulletin’s financial specialist, to look up a few things. She said she couldn't find anything definite but that signs pointed to something bigger behind all this.”

“Anything else?” Madani asked.

“Things I heard. Nothing that would count as proof, but…” Matt stopped. “You know who I – who _else_ I am. Those chips have information someone wants. They weren’t supposed to end up in dogs of all things, but that’s what happens when you delegate. This isn't like Fisk. There’s no criminal empire, but someone recruiting petty criminals and small-time neo-nazis to further their goals. They’re also looking for an in with government agencies.”

“What goals?”

“That's the question.”

“And the answer may be in there?”

“Perhaps.” Matt finally pushed the samples box in her direction.

“Thank you.” Madani checked the seal before putting it in her bag and covering it with a scarf. “I got people on the Liebermans’ and your shelter. Do you need protection too, Ms Page, Mr Nelson?” She pointedly didn’t mention Matt.

“That would make them a target,” Frank said.

“Aren’t they already? Do you think they know your identities?”

“I don’t want anyone tailing me,” Karen said. “That would be even more of a giveaway.” Frank opened his mouth then closed it when she glared at him. She made her own choices, and he had no say in it. But he still worried, you know?

“Yeah, same,” Nelson said.

“Are you both sure?”

Matt frowned, but didn’t say anything. He wanted to, Frank could see him swallowing his words, but he didn’t. He recognized what fights he couldn't win. Sometimes.

“I am. Not the first time we’re targets, Agent Madani.”

“All right.” She got her phone out and sent a quick message. “Some of this stuff I didn’t know, and some confirms what I was afraid of. I’m going to see what checks out and get those chips analyzed ASAP. I’ll get back to you as soon as I know something. Just don’t do anything stupid, all right?” Madani closed the folders and slid it into her bag. “And Murdock? Just don’t do anything, period.”

They all stood up to walk her to the door, and Matt put his hand on the doorknob before she could open it. “How are they?”

“They’ll live, Murdock,” Madani said. Frank put his hand on Matt’s back, where she couldn’t see it but he could feel it. “I didn’t listen to you because you didn’t give me reason to, and you made your call. I understand why you didn’t want to tell me, but I appreciate that you’re cooperating properly now.”

She left the office and spared everyone awkward pleasantries. Frank was pretty sure Karen and Madani could have been friends in other circumstances. They were both driven and ruthless when they had a goal, and Frank admired that.

“Do you think she meant it, when she said she’d keep us in the loop?” Nelson asked.

“She wasn’t lying, Fogs,” Matt said. “She meant it.”

“Well, that’s good.” Nelson rubbed his hands. “So that wasn’t tense at all. Anyone up for a drink?”

“I shouldn’t. I have to, you know. Tonight.”

“You don’t _have_ to, Matt.” Nelson glanced at Frank. “I’m not sure you should, either.”

“You try to stop him, Nelson.”

“I’m sure you have your ways,” Karen said.

“Ugh, really?” Nelson looked horrified. “Did I need those images in my head now?”

“Are you imagining me and Frank? Foggy, I never knew!”

“You know those sandwiches you like so much, that my mom makes specially for you? You can forget about them, Murdock.”

“You should go with them,” Frank said. “I’ll be around.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“Nah.” Karen looked disappointed. “Can’t leave the dog with the neighbor all night long, you know?”

“Thank you,” Matt said.

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll tell you if I see anything, all right?”

Frank squeezed Karen’s arm (“Be careful, Frank”), punched Nelson’s shoulder (“Ow!”) and kissed Matt’s forehead while turning his back on them. He wanted to keep this just for Matt and him, as tame as it was. Matt got it, and he got what Matt didn’t need to say.

They’d see each other again soon anyway.

 

Matt found him on a roof above a gay bar, a few hours later. He’d changed into his dark clothes and mask, but he’d left the body armor home.

“You didn’t need to come,” Frank said.

“I wanted to.” Matt leaned on the ledge of the roof, their arms brushing. “Any trouble?”

“There was some shouting earlier down here. Drunk assholes.” Frank hoped Zach, at least, would not grow up to be one of those assholes.

“What were they shouting about?”

“The usual.”

“It never changes.”

“No.” Frank wondered if Matt felt the cold. He wasn’t shivering, but then again he had freakishly good body control. Or maybe he was just drunk enough to not feel it.

“What did you do?”

He’d asked the older one what his problem was, dodged his clumsy blows, tripped him. Probably broke his wrist. Frank shrugged. “They left. Went in, had a drink.”

“And?”

“And, nothing.” Matt smiled a little and slid his arm under Frank’s. Maybe he _was_ a little cold after all. “Got propositioned by a couple guys.” The smile disappeared. “Turned them down.”

“Frank,” Matt said.

“Hm.”

“Come home.”

“Nice view here.”

“ _Frank_.”

“What?”

“We can’t leave Lucy on her own too long. Come home.”

“For the dog?”

“For the dog.”

Frank was pretty sure someone down in the street saw two guys kissing on the roof, but it was dark and they didn’t linger on the roof long enough to be recognized. Lucy was waiting, after all.

 

Frank’s phone rang early on Saturday morning, and sent a very startled Lucy jumping to the floor. They hadn’t been fully awake yet, and Matt frowned slightly at the ceiling as Frank answered.

“Yeah.”

“Frank, do you have Internet access right now?” It was David.

“Yeah? What is it?”

“I’m sending you a link. You need to see this.”

“What…” Frank’s phone buzzed.

“Just look at it, okay? I’m waiting.”

 _What the hell, David_. Frank clicked, and – “Oh, fuck.”

“What is it?” Matt asked.

“A blog article about us.”

“What?”

“Someone took a picture last night.” Shit, Frank hadn’t thought about that. “You can’t see much, but you can definitely see one guy has a mask.”

“And?”

“And there are _two_ guys and you’re making out on top of a gay bar,” David said. “Nice work with the stubble too, Matt. Maybe shave next time you go making out with Frank in public so people don’t mix you up, yeah? Anyway, Sarah thinks it’s very cute, but – look, read the article, Frank.”

He did, out loud for Matt. And, hell. The title was, _Daredevil: A Gay Romance For The Devil’s Of Hell’s Kitchen?_ It went downhill from there. One of the people who’d witnessed Frank punch the assholes earlier had seen them on the roof later on and had assumed the masked guy kissing a mysterious stranger on top of a gay bar was Daredevil _and_ the same bearded dude who’d defended the bar.

There was a lot of speculation in the article: was Daredevil gay? bi? Was he a bear? Who was the other guy? Was it a hookup or was Daredevil going steady? Would he officially come out? Who had actually met him without knowing who he was? Was he a regular in other gay bars? Did he only drink Scotch? (There was a debate in the comments over what drinks Daredevil would enjoy.)

“It’s kinda funny,” David said.

Frank disagreed. “Madani’s going to be pissed.”

“Well, that too.”

“This is a risk,” Matt said. “Daredevil has known links to Nelson, Murdock and Page, and Detective Mahoney. I guess Jessica, Luke and Danny should be fine, but – oh, fuck, Claire. She’s in danger too. And…”

“It’s all theories and guesses, Matt. They have nothing.”

“But some people can still use it against us.” Matt sat up. “I need to call Foggy, and Karen, and…”

“We will. We should think first, yeah? Plan ahead.” Frank patted the bed and Lucy jumped up and settled over Matt’s legs.

“But…” Matt’s shoulders sagged a little and he started absently petting Lucy, his fingers running over her collar and tag. He liked the Braille there. Good.

“I’m going to call Madani,” Frank told David. “She should put more eyes on you four, just in case. Be safe, yeah?”

“We will. Oh, Leo wants to say something.”

“Hi, Frank!”

“Hey, girl.”

“Can I be your maid of honor?”

It made Matt smile, and he tried to hide it by playing with Lucy. It didn’t work.

 

Madani, of course, was aware of the blog article.

“We can’t really see anything apart from Frank’s back and a masked face, but this isn’t good. What possessed you to – I told you to lay low!”

“I didn’t do anything,” Matt said.

“Look, what’s done is done.” Frank could see Matt’s frown, feel his muscles tense more and more against his side. Frank knew very well that an anxious Matt didn’t bode well for anyone. “Madani. Did you find anything?”

“Nothing we hadn’t already, but we confirmed some of what you suspected.”

“Agent Madani,” Matt said.

“Yes?”

“More people need a protection detail. Not just the Liebermans.”

“Mr Nelson and Ms Page refused.”

“The risk is higher and not just coming from who or what you’re investigating. Daredevil… has many enemies, and has known associations to more people than just Karen and Foggy.”

“And he’s got a boyfriend too, Murdock.” She was teasing, Frank could hear it in her voice. But Matt wasn’t smiling at all. “Look, my resources are limited, and Daredevil is probably not a target for the people we’re looking for anyway. We’re keeping watch over your shelter; they probably don’t know we’ve got the chips and there's still the question of why they tried to expropriate it. David Lieberman is an asset to the country as well as a whistleblower, he’s a target as an NSA specialist and a high-level hacker. I can spare a few agents but not enough to cover all the people you’ve ever been in contact with under either identities. Both of which are now a target for a number of reasons, anyway.”

Matt sighed. “I know.”

Frank knew what was going on in his head: that someone was going to go after all those linked with Daredevil in one way or another, in the hopes of finding his lover. That now people knew the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen wasn’t just a vigilante with professional ties but also a human being with weaknesses to attack. That he forgot to hide sometimes, and that some things made him stupid. Made him forget threats.

He knew what was in Matt’s head. Frank had been there, too.

“We’ll deal, Madani.”

“Those are not reassuring words. Especially coming from you two.”

Well then. _She_ ’d have to deal, too.

 

Matt insisted on calling Karen and Nelson, but balked at contacting the other people he’d mentioned.

“Better if Foggy does it,” he said.

“Why?”

“He’s, um... been their attorney.” Matt was cagey, and Frank left it at that. He’d have to pay Nelson a visit one of these days, question him. Gently.

“All right. Hey, I should go take care of those pit bulls. Want to come?” Maybe an afternoon playing with dogs would help. Take Matt’s mind, their minds, off this shit.

 

It didn’t really help.

“Trouble in paradise?” Naye asked as she watched Matt sitting on a crate and listlessly throwing a ball.

“Nah.” Frank held the tarp corners down as she tied the rope to secure it.

“So,” she went on after a while. “Did the chips help?”

“We’ll see.”

“Pete.”

“Yeah.”

“ _Pete_.” She poked him in the chest. “I know there’s plenty you’re not saying. It’s fine. I’ve seen the guys your agent friend put around to keep watch, I know there’s more behind those chips and more about the night the shelter was attacked, and if you can’t tell me yet, I respect that. But don’t shut us out, all right? If there’s anything Carlie or I can do…”

Frank undid and redid the knots securing the tarp. He didn’t want to look at her.

“You were here that night, Ravi was safe, and they didn’t get the dogs. They didn’t get any dog.”

“Look, Madani’s not my friend, all right?”

Naye shook her head. “Sure, okay.” She looked worried, but she let it go and told him about her adventures apartment hunting instead. He made the right noises at the appropriate times and promised to help carry stuff. Normal guy stuff. He wasn’t sure she bought it.

Right as Naye finished a rant about rent prices, Matt stood up in the yard and tilted his head. The dogs all stopped playing, too.

“What is it?” Naye’s braids swished left and right as she turned around. Frank looked over at Matt, who after a while seemed to relax a bit. The dogs resumed their tussling, too.

“Huh. The dogs are weird today,” Naye said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be in the surgery if you need me, all right?”

Frank nodded and watched her go. He wondered how much Carlie and Naye had guessed, and if not knowing was more or less dangerous than knowing. He walked to Matt and put a hand on his lower back. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Gunfire?”

“Yeah. Not too close, though. Not about us.” Matt’s head twitched a little as he listened around. “We shouldn't stay.”

“This place is a target whether we’re here or not.”

“We, I’m making it worse. I’m going out tonight.”

“Madani better not know about it, then.” But it wasn’t like you could stop Matt when he’d decided something. “Need a hand?”

Matt shook his head, as a _no_ or as an _I don’t know what to do_ Frank couldn't say. But Matt’s fingers found his and Frank held on tight. He’d be there, then. Looking out with Matt, looking out for him.

 

Frank was at St Agnes when it happened.

He’d walked with Matt and Lucy to a coffee shop where they’d met with Karen and Nelson for breakfast, then he’d left them to their lawyer talk to go spend Monday morning at the orphanage. He liked the work there. It felt like he did something good, for those kids. That he made a difference. He still tried to avoid them, because they didn’t have their parents anymore and Frank, he didn’t… yeah. So he went during school hours, and sometimes had a chat with Maggie after he’d fixed whatever needed fixing.

His phone buzzed while he was fighting with an ancient water heater that didn’t want to budge, so he waited until he’d finally taken it out of its closet and put it down next to its replacement to check his phone. In about ten minutes, he’d gotten three messages from Nelson and five from Karen. Shit, what was happening? He hadn’t heard most of them as he’d been swearing at the old piece of junk and whacking at the bolts that didn’t want to come off.

And why was there nothing from Matt?

He listened to the first message, then the second. Then, he called Karen.

“Frank! Oh my god, have you seen him?”

“What?”

“He’s disappeared, we can’t – ”

“Slow down. What happened?” He started putting his tools back in the box. “I didn’t listen to everything.”

“There was a bomb at the office.” Frank dropped the hammer on a bunch of screwdrivers. “Matt, he – he smelled explosives, we ran out. Foggy and I…” She hiccuped.

“Where are you now, Karen?”

“Foggy called Brett and we’re with him now. They’ve blocked the streets around the block and we’re with Brett. But Matt…” There were quick steps and the noises around her were softer. “Sorry, there’s a lot of police here.”

“Where is he?” Frank’s focus was narrowing. The pulse of blood in his skull. The smell of metal in his hands.

“I don’t know. I’d hoped maybe he’d gone to you.”

“No.” Frank snapped the toolbox closed and looked up to see Maggie in the doorway.

“He was… he left Lucy with us and he ran back in, he said there were other people in, that there was enough time. A bunch of people came out, but Matt… Foggy’s trying to cover for him, but I don’t know… Frank, I…” Karen was panting. She was scared.

“I’m coming, all right? I’m coming.” He hung up.

“I heard about the bombing,” Maggie said. “And that no one was hurt. Is that true?”

“He got people out.”

“And did _he_?” Frank didn’t answer, and Maggie’s eyes widened slightly. “You must go, of course.”

“I’m sorry. Will take a bit more time to have this bathroom back in use.”

“Nevermind the bathroom.” She stopped him with a small, iron hand on his chest. “Pete.”

“Yeah.”

“Get him back.”

Hope, Frank thought, was a wonderful and terrible thing. He remembered he used to have hope, and faith, and a family. He couldn't hold on to them. He _lost_ them. But he’d learned to make people pay. “Ma’am,” he said.

Maggie took her hand away and he left St Agnes.

 

The building was still standing, but there was a big hole right where their office had been. Fuck. They might have to tear the building down. It didn’t take him long to find Karen and Nelson. They were with a detective, and Frank recognized him. Mahoney, huh. Decent guy, good cop. He pulled up his hood over his head just in case the beard didn’t hide his features enough.

“Any news?” Frank tried to keep his voice soft, a bit higher than usual.

“No. Pete, this is Detective Mahoney, a friend of Foggy’s. Brett, this is Pete Castiglione: Matt’s boyfriend.” Mahoney eyed him a bit suspiciously and Frank gave him a quick nod before bending to pet Lucy. He didn’t need Mahoney to identify him. Not now.

“I’m sorry, Mr Castiglione. We don’t have any news so far, but it doesn’t mean…”

“Yeah. I know.”

Nelson stopped poking at his phone and shook his head at Frank from behind the cop. So he wasn’t answering Nelson either. At least the phone didn’t go straight to voicemail, so it probably hadn’t been destroyed. “Brett, he can’t have been caught in the explosion, right? When we ran out, it was _straight out_ ; he’s blind but he would have known not to turn back, you know?”

Another cop came to Mahoney and held out a plastic bag. There was a folded white cane in it. “Sir,” he said. “We found it on the first floor, near the door.”

“Shit. Foggy, do you remember him dropping it as you ran out?”

“I don’t know,” Nelson said. “We just, well, uh. We got in, Lucy started barking, we saw something blinking on Karen’s desk, we ran out. It’s all a blur.”

“Sure. And the guide dog is trained to detect explosives, too?”

“We don’t know what she’s trained to do. Look, Brett, we told you. The big blinking thing just didn’t look like someone had brought us pie, you know?”

“Did you see a large timer on it, too? Maybe some crisscrossing lasers around it?” Karen frowned, but the detective was right. Their story was obviously a story. “I’m not stupid, you know. There’s something you’re not telling me. Yet.”

“Brett…”

“Save it. The other people that got out said they were told to get out by a masked man going up the fire escape, who was hiding most of himself behind the wall. No one could see him well enough to be sure but several have mentioned they believe it was Daredevil. He told them there was a gas leak and to evacuate.”

“A gas leak?”

“People are less likely to trample each other if you say gas leak rather than bomb. Look, your firm has worked with him before, right?” Nelson exchanged a glance with Karen and nodded. “Right. So, were you meeting with him today? Lawyers,” Mahoney sighed when they didn’t answer. “Is it possible Murdock escaped with him?”

“I don’t know, Brett.”

Frank looked again at the gaping hole in the building, then at the people that Matt had saved. Karen and Nelson had been the first out, far enough to be safe, but others were looking a little shell-shocked, some touching their ears as if they’d been close enough when the bomb had gone off they had ruptured eardrums. There were ambulances around, but no life-threatening emergency he could see. Maybe they’d been evacuated already, but it didn’t feel that way. It didn’t feel like death. Even the news people didn’t seem too excited. Not juicy enough for them, perhaps. Not enough blood.

But anyone on that floor would have sustained serious injury, and possibly also on others. If Matt had been anywhere near it, at best his ears would be ringing enough he’d be a sitting duck. Fucking martyr.

“I have to go,” Frank said to Karen.

“Mr Castiglione, can you leave your contact information with us?” Mahoney asked.

Frank shrugged. “Sure. Let me know if you find anything.” He gave Mahoney the shelter address and phone number and pulled Karen a little away. “Look. I’m going to, you know. Can you keep Lucy for a while?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Find him.” Avenge him, if it came to that.

“Frank…”

“Please.”

“Fine. Just… be safe, Frank.”

“I will.”

Karen shook her head but caught him before he left, wrapped her arms around him, and held him tight. Her perfume was familiar, even under all the dust and acrid fear-sweat. Frank closed his eyes for a second, nodded at Nelson, and let go.

 

Frank went to Matt’s apartment first. Everything was the way they’d left it this morning. There was no sign of Matt, but he was everywhere: in the Braille mugs they’d left in the sink, in the thick prayer book on his bedside table, in the rosary hanging on the back of a chair. Frank snagged it and put it in his pocket.

He sat on the couch and looked at the billboard outside. It was flashing something about finding peace in Jesus, of all things. _Not everybody finds peace in Jesus, assholes_. He got his phone out. There was a message from Nelson: _Matt’s phone found too. No sign of him_. Fuck. He called David.

“Hey, man. You all right?”

“Hey,” Frank said. “Look, I need your skills.”

“Sure, hit me. You sound, well. What’s wrong?”

“Matt’s office was bombed.”

“Oh shit! How – ”

“I don’t know. He got everyone out, but he’s missing. Can you find him?”

“I can try his phone, maybe?”

“No. They found it in the office. Can you do the thing you did with me? Analyze his gait, find him somewhere?”

“Uh. I can try. I’ll need footage of him, but that… um… yeah, that I can get. But it’s going to take time, Frank. I’ll be as quick as I can, but I can’t use too many resources at work.” There was the clack of keys, the sound of wheels on the floor. David liked his rolling chairs. “I’ll try other stuff, check hospital records, that sort of thing.”

“Yeah, okay. Thanks.”

“And Frank.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll find him, okay? You take care so he gets back to _you_ , you hear me?”

“Just do your thing, and I’ll do mine.”

David sighed on the other end of the line, and Frank hung up before he could say anything else. He didn’t have the kind of time David would need, then. Frank looked around the apartment one last time, committed it to his memory, carefully closed the door and didn’t look back. He had recon to do.

 

Frank drove to the storage unit he rented cheap way out in Queens, spent a couple hours checking his guns and ammo. Everything looked fine. He had a little stash in the shelter, but he wanted to be ready. Prepared for anything. He loaded up the van, studied a map, and made a first stop in a little rundown bar in Brooklyn where Matt had said he’d heard Über Alles met. They shouldn’t have let Madani take point on this, they – _Frank_ – should have gotten rid of them straight away. Fuck Pete Castiglione, fuck his cover, fuck keeping a low profile. He stuck a couple guns in a back holster and a knife in an ankle sheath, put on a camo jacket, and walked in. None of the guys that had tried to kidnap Zach had escaped and they shouldn't recognize him, but if they did… well, too bad. For them.

“Whatever’s on tap,” Frank told the barman. He settled at the bar and waited for one of the assholes staring at him to come check him out. It didn’t take them long.

“You’re new.” Buzz cut, swastika on his neck, tattoo of a Marine battalion that didn’t exist. Fucking fake soldier. Frank’s trigger finger itched.

“Yeah.”

“You looking for something?”

“A beer.”

“All right, buddy.” Frank wanted to make him swallow his _buddy_ and his teeth along with it. Buzz Cut pointed at his own neck. “See this?”

“I see it.”

“We don’t want no fucking Jews or fags or towel heads here.”

“Got it.”

“Good.” Buzz Cut looked him up and down, gave him a piss poor salute, and went back to his table.

“We’re a tight crowd here,” the barman said.

“Appreciate it.”

The barman left him to deal with a couple guys at the other end of the bar, but Frank could feel eyes on him. He kept at his beer, waited for them to resume their conversation. Forget about him. He looked at the dog pictures on the wall. Pit bulls. There were a few cheap trophies under the pictures. He took the newspaper left on the barstool next to him, got another beer. He wanted to shoot them all down but he couldn’t. He couldn’t. Not yet.

And finally, it paid off.

Buzz Cut’s phone rang, and he answered it without leaving the table. Frank had become part of the decor. He said a few yeahs, okays, goods, and when he put the phone back in his jacket Frank could see the wide grin on his face in the mirror behind the bar.

“So, guys. I got news. Good news.” The other nazi assholes urged him on. “Remember the lawyer?”

“The blind one the boss wanted dead? Fuck yeah. They got him?”

“They got him.” Something shifted in Frank. He could feel his heartbeat slow down. “He won’t be a pain in the ass any more.”

And that was it. Frank drained his beer, thumped it down on the counter, stood up. The motherfuckers didn’t look at him until he was standing near their table.

“You know,” he said, low and casual. “The 5th Tank Battalion doesn’t exist.”

“Hey, buddy, what…” Buzz Cut shut up when Frank slammed the muzzle of one gun into his neck tattoo as he shot the barman down with the other. He kept it trained on the two assholes the barman had been talking to. They froze, hands in the air.

“One move. Come on, give me a reason.” Frank was reckless, and he knew it. He was outnumbered and probably outgunned; the only thing he had going for him was that he didn’t care.

“Look, man, what’s got into you?”

“You tell me where your boss is, and I’ll make it quick.” Buzz Cut’s hand crept under the table and Frank shot through it. Too bad it shot through Buzz Cut’s hand too.

Then it was chaos. Buzz Cut was on the floor holding his stump and screaming, surrounded by bits of wood. Someone threw a chair and Frank dodged it, shot one guy who was reaching into his jacket. Another crept behind the bar and found a rifle, and bits of wood flew right where Frank’s head had been a second before. He sucker-punched one of the assholes and used him as a human shield, and they stopped firing.

“Where’s your boss?”

“You’re dead, man.” Rifle’s hands were shaking.

Frank smiled. “You don’t know the half of it.” He dug the gun into the back of his shield. “And how alive do _you_ feel?” Aw, and now Shield was pissing himself. Frank took a step back so he didn’t stand in it. “Where.”

“Just tell him! Tell him!”

They all kept silent. Frank moved the gun between Shield’s side and his arm, shot Rifle center mass, repositioned his weapon right against Shield’s spine. “What about spending your entire life pissing yourself? Unable to get it up? Uh? Or would you rather be dead?” Buzz Cut’s screams had turned into small whimpers. He’d lost too much blood. “You think you’re tough, uh. You think you’re tough shit. You're shit all right.”

There were three guys left standing, plus Shield. Two had guns, a third one had a knife. All right, all right. He’d seen worse odds. He’d beaten them. He’d beat them.

“Hunts Point!” Shield said. “Corner – corner of Viele and Manida, in front of the junkyard. Please!”

One batch, two batch. Penny and dime.

He’d always been a good shot.

 

Frank washed the blood from his face in the restroom. Intel gathering had turned into revenge. Blood for blood: they’d deserved it.

He drove back to the shelter and got in via the back entrance in case there was still someone in the office, then up the fire escape to get to his place. Here, too, there were too many things that made his head hurt, right where the bullet was still lodged. Lucy’s bowls, a white cane leaning against the wall. He went into the bathroom and the two toothbrushes were mocking him. He knocked them off and looked at his face, but it wasn’t his face. It was Pete’s, and he wasn’t Pete any longer. But he’d never really been Pete, had he? He knew what he had to do.

He got scissors out, a razor. He cut off everything that had become too soft and the Punisher’s face reappeared, swipe after swipe.

It would be the last face they’d see. The last face.

 

Once he was done in the bathroom, Frank got his bulletproof vest out from under the floorboards. The skull stared at him, and he stared back. _Long time no see_ , he thought. He put it on and added a sweatshirt over it, then remembered the rosary in his pocket. He ran the beads in his hands until he reached the cross. There were raised dots on it instead of a figure of Jesus. He couldn’t read them with his fingertips like Matt, but he’d learned to read it with his eyes. _Hope_ , on one side. _Faith,_ on the other. Frank had none. He tied the rosary around one arm, tight enough it wouldn't move, tight enough he’d feel it. No false hope, no faith. He was the Punisher. He was death. Death on his chest, death in his hands.

He was ready.

 

At first glance, the place looked empty. Frank drove past it and parked the van far enough that it shouldn’t be noticed. He hoped Carlie would see his note about what he’d done with it and where it should be found if it didn’t come back. He didn’t think he’d be back. The place looked empty, yeah, but here like with the house where they’d kept Zach, there were signs. Cars that didn’t look rundown enough for the area. A satellite dish. A suspicious lack of broken windows. Metal glinting on the roof. Frank got a scope out and he was right. Armed guards up there.

Well, they’d be his first target.

The rosary’s cross had slipped out from under the bead it had been tucked in. He held it for a while, feeling the raised dots that he couldn't read like Matt could. Like Matt used to. _Hope_ , Frank remembered. _Faith_. Matt would hold it in prayer, he’d kiss the cross, he sometimes took it with him at night and pretended he didn’t wake up with his fingers tangled in it. Frank looked up at the roof. Matt wouldn’t do that ever again. And these people – they’d pay.

Frank didn’t care anymore about whatever larger conspiracy was behind it. They’d taken Matt from him – they’d killed him, and Frank would take their lives. One by one, one bullet at a time. The skull the last thing they'd ever see. He put the cross back under the rosary, hid its empty _Hope_ and its empty _Faith_ again, and checked his weapons one last time. Red wasn’t here to say no killing. He wasn’t here to say that everyone deserves a second chance.

There was no one to stop Frank as he climbed from a dumpster to a window sill to the roof, no one to stop his hand when he took his gun out. The night was starting to fall, but that didn’t matter. It just served as his cover. There was no one who was at home with the dark here, just someone who was at home with death. One batch – right between the eyes. Two batch – in the neck. Third guy tried to jump him from behind, and Frank smiled. Penny and dime, and he slit his throat. Blood sprayed all over him, and it felt good. It felt like what he was supposed to be. A killing machine, covered in blood.

He put the gun back in its holster and made for the roof access. Surprise, motherfuckers.

The inside was rather like what he’d expected: offices, laptops, workshops with computer parts everywhere. A few more guards. Frank didn’t give them time to react; he sneaked behind them and stabbed them in the neck. No screaming. He found a weapons closet and helped himself to some grenades, smoke bombs, and ammo. And, hey, military-grade ear protection. He put them in and didn’t think of Matt at all.

As he was about to leave the closet, someone called for help. They’d found the guards. Combat boots pounding the floors and the vibrations resonating through his soles; harsh neon lights blazing everywhere. He had to get out of the closet, first. Fifteen feet ahead, another door. He crouched, peered out – they were coming ahead. He threw a smoke bomb as far as he could in the corridor, fired ahead and ran for it.

He rolled behind the wall as the door was splintering from their bullets, landing heavily on his wrist. He pulled the pin of a grenade, lobbed it in their direction, and covered his head. _Boom_. Glass shattered, and he was up and out again. He’d taken out an entire enemy squad by himself in Kandahar, so these small-time mercenaries? They wouldn't stop him. They wouldn’t know what hit them, right until the smoke cleared enough and they could see the skull.

One batch, two batch: there was nothing but gunshots, muffled by the ear plugs; smoke everywhere, bits of wall flying around where bullets hit; the smell of burning and gunpowder and blood and piss and death. On Frank went, emptying room after room; the entire corridor behind him littered with bodies and emptied cartridges and jammed guns. Maybe they screamed, those whose guts he’d opened or whose buddies he’d killed. Frank didn’t care. He was deaf to everything but death, death, death. The only word in his head, knocking on the sides of his skull.

He marched on, door after door after door, and nothing and no one stopped him. Something hurt on the outside of his thigh, and he looked down quickly to see he was bleeding. Not enough to be an issue for now. He threw away the last rifle he’d taken from a dead asshole to empty it into another.

There was one last door, and it led to a staircase. He couldn’t see anyone and just in case he took an ear plug out.

“Castle,” he heard. Shit. Madani. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Don’t shoot, I’m coming up.”

“What are you doing here?” She was wearing a bulletproof vest and was armed.

“We got intel too, that we didn’t acquire via decimating a neo-nazi bar. First floor is secured. Did you leave anyone alive upstairs?” He shrugged. “Fine. Hey, you’re bleeding,” Madani added after looking him up and down.

“How did you know it was me?”

“As I said, intel.” Frank looked behind her, at her team ready to shoot him down if he made the wrong move. “You can stand down,” she said over her shoulder. A few took their time before lowering their weapons, and Frank approved. He got the message and slowly crouched, putting the rifle he’d been holding on the floor, muzzle away from anyone. Not about to put his hands up though.

“Did you find him?” Frank asked.

Madani shook her head. “We found out a lot, but not their leader.”

“Murdock. Did you find Murdock?”

“What about him?” Frank couldn't say it, so he didn’t say anything. Madani turned back to her team and told them to secure the second floor, and when they’d ran up past her she made Frank sit on the stairs. “What about him. What about Murdock, Frank. Come on, talk to me.”

“They.” No, he couldn't say it. “His office was bombed.” That was okay. He could say that. He looked down at his hands. There was blood under his nails, blood caked in the grooves of his palms, and he started picking at it.

“I know, but they didn’t find any body on the scene. Nelson said Murdock got everyone out, then disappeared. You think they took him?”

“The guys at the bar. They said.” Bits of blood wouldn’t come out. He scrubbed harder.

“Could have been lying.”

“He must have been close. The explosion would’ve…” He waved at his ear. “You know.”

Madani kept silent after that.

A guy came down after a while, said the floor was secured, and looked at Frank like he didn’t know what to make of him. Madani ordered them to start bagging and tagging evidence, and Frank went back to his hands.

“We analyzed the chips,” she said. Whatever. He didn’t care. “They had maps on them, plans, codes… they were planning on infiltrating and poisoning water and food resources in the whole greater New York area, hence a Hunts Point base. The next phase was to target communication networks.” The dried blood was the color of Red’s old suit. Flakes of it fell between his feet. “That’s why they went for buildings near or above access to the water pipes and network cables.”

“I don’t care, Madani.”

“I do. I should arrest you, but once again you’ve stumbled on National Security matters and you’ve helped stop them.”

“I don’t care.” Mostly, what he cared about what that Madani’s team had dealt with the first floor without him and that made his mission incomplete. Unfinished. His fists itched, and yet he’d removed the blood. But maybe he needed to put some fresh blood on them, yeah? Maybe _that_ was the answer.

Another agent came up the stairs to talk to Madani. Her eyes went to Frank’s chest, widened a little at the skull, but she kept her mouth shut about it. “We found something you should see. Hidden door.”

Maybe there was fresh blood to be found behind it. Frank followed them down.

They’d made room around it, but it was the kind of door that wouldn't budge without either C4 or some electronics expert. “Open it,” Madani said.

They went the C4 route, and Frank didn’t think about what they’d used in Nelson, Murdock and Page’s office. He didn’t want to think, at all. Once it was clear again, Madani sent four of her men to do recon inside, and didn’t let Frank go in. There were a few shouts, gunfire, and then Madani handed him an earpiece so he could listen in too.

… _real deal here!_

_Yeah, geek squad will love it._

_Another one!_

_He’s down._

_Fuck what happened here?_

_Shit, lights out!_

_What the –_

_Agent Madani?_

“Report.”

_We’ve found a couple unconscious guards and a few computer nerds tied to a radiator with… tape?_

_We can’t see worth shit but – oof._

Madani sent another team to find the switchboard and turn the lights on again.

_Shit, someone’s coming!_

_Fuck, my light!_

There was more gunfire, some yelling, and Frank tore a flashlight from an agent’s hand and ran in. There was death inside, there was fresh blood. No other reason.

 _Castle’s coming in. He’s with us, don’t shoot him_ , Madani said in his ear _._ He didn’t care.

And then he found them. Two agents holding someone down on the floor, another against the wall holding his own shoulder and trying to breathe through the pain. The guy they were pinning down – Matt was alive. Matt was alive.

And Frank, he was frozen there.

“Let him up,” Madani said. “That’s their hostage.” As soon as they released their pressure on him Matt was trying to hit them again, and it was obvious he couldn’t hear them. “Frank,” she said, and he found he could move.

He pushed agents aside and got behind Matt, wrapped his arms around him, pinned his arms and hoped he wasn’t squeezing hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough Red would recognize him. Matt’s clothes were covered in blood, he was wheezing, his eyes were wild and panicked and Frank’s chest felt like an entire building had fallen on _him_. But Matt – Matt was _alive_ , trying to kick and head-butt and escape. He was weak, exhausted. He was slowing down. Frank rubbed his cheek against Matt’s, remembered he’d shaved, and suddenly his thoughts went in overdrive. How could he make him realize the fight was over? He looked down at his forearms on Matt’s stomach, and… yes. That could work.

Matt was tired out enough Frank now could hold both arms with one of his, and he used his teeth on the rosary to free the little cross. Once it was out, he dangled it over Matt’s hands, let it touch them, and Matt – he latched on it. As soon as his fingers had found it ( _Hope_ , _Faith_ ) he slumped and Frank caught him and helped him sit down.

Madani was talking into her earpiece, the other agents were a little wide-eyed, and Frank didn’t give a shit. Matt was alive, and he hadn’t let go of the cross.

“Frank?”

“That’s me, Red. You can’t hear me, can you?” Matt’s free hand was patting at his own head, and he was bleeding sluggish and thick. He’d gotten hit not long ago, everything must be swollen. Especially after that blast earlier… shit.

“Frank, I thought… they said you were… is that you? I can’t…” He waved at his ear. “It’s coming and going, all the time.” Fuck, his face, was he crying? Was he laughing? His breathing was not right either, something was wrong.

“Are you hurt? Are you hurt anywhere?” Matt’s eyes rolled up in his head and Frank looked down to his chest, moved what was left of his jacket aside and – No. No. “He’s shot. He was shot.”

The recon team. There had been shots earlier. Frank looked up at the recon team and one of them took a step back, another raised his hands and shook his head. “ _You_.” Frank was already standing up, he was going to kill them with his bare hands and feel their necks snap and – he was stuck.

He looked down and Matt’s fingers where still hooked in the rosary and he couldn't move, he couldn't move away. Then Madani was pushing him back and medics were everywhere and one was trying to look at his leg and Frank stumbled, he stumbled down on a wobbly office chair and sounds and colors and smells came rushing back at him. It smelled like blood. It smelled like death, and the medics around Matt were not hurrying, they were slow and shook their heads and didn’t shout, they didn’t shout. Frank was going to kill the recon team.

“Madani. Let me go.”

“No.”

Frank stood up anyway. The medic fell on his ass and an agent trained his weapon on Frank. “Come on, kid, pull that trigger.” _Give me a reason, give me a reason to kill you_. His hand went to the knife sheath at his back but Madani stepped between them.

“Castle,” She said. He snarled. “ _Frank_.”

“They shot him. They’re dead.”

“No one’s dead and no one’s dying. Look.” He looked. Medics were evacuating Matt on a backboard, holding bags of fluids up above him. Time was wrong. They couldn't have done that much – time was wrong. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, we’re taking you to the hospital too.”

“No.” Frank took a step to follow the stretcher and the world around him suddenly turned upside down. Someone was poking at his leg. “No,” he repeated. To the medic, to Madani, to his own body, to death itself.

He tried to get up but his legs were jelly. He gritted his teeth, got on one knee, and then Madani was in his face. “Listen to me, he’s alive so far. Medics are going to keep him that way. And we’re taking you to the hospital.” She removed the comm in his ear, kept talking about getting him to a doctor. He shook his head. It wasn’t a good idea, it made him want to puke. “Where Murdock is.”

Frank wrenched himself up, one hand on a table to support him, locking his knees and ordering his leg to stop quivering. His wrist hurt, too. He’d had worse. Curt always said, _it only takes one time, the right nerve, the right blood vessel, the right ligament, and you’re down_. He wasn’t down. Not as long as he had something to do.

The agent who’d come up the stairs to tell them about the hidden door was right in front of him when he opened his eyes again. “I’ll help you upstairs, Lieutenant Castle,” she said.

“I’m not in the service anymore,” he mumbled.

“Okay, Lieutenant.” He scowled in her direction. He’d left all that behind, all right? Or it had left him. Same difference.

“Madani.” Frank tried to focus his eyes on her. “Find out who shot him.”

“And let you know who your next target is going to be? Dream on, Frank,” Madani said. “Zhang, get him to the hospital. Sit on him until I get there. I have to wrap things up here first.”

“Don’t sit on me.”

“I can cuff you to a hospital bed if you’d rather. Not the one with your boyfriend in it.” Madani snickered behind them.

It was so easy these days for them, saying that out loud. When Frank’d first joined, the word ‘boyfriend’ could have gotten him discharged. And now. “Take me to him. Can’t drive.” His leg was throbbing now that he was aware of it. Now that he didn’t have anyone to kill.

They hobbled up the stairs out to a van with dark windows and several agents stared at him, mumbling and pointing. “You’ve impressed them,” she said.

They wondered why he wasn’t in cuffs, more like. “Get me to him, Zhang.”

“I’m getting you to the hospital as ordered, sir. Before you keel over.” Kids these days.

But once in the van she opened the radio channels and and he listened as she drove, his eyes closed. _Murdock’s arrived_ , it said. _He’s being prepped for surgery. He’s in surgery now_. Every word meant Matt was alive. He tuned out everything else.

 

The van stopped and Frank opened his eyes to look outside. Bronx-Lebanon hospital, huh. He opened the door and would have fallen on his face if Zhang hadn’t been here to catch him.

“Huh. You’re strong,” he said.

“Well, yeah.” She sounded proud of it, and she should. But then she pushed him into a waiting gurney and he could walk, right? He could walk, and he tried to push the gurney away, but then nurses came to help Zhang and force him onto it. “I’m starting to get why Special Agent Madani told me to sit on you,” she said.

“Fuck you.”

“That’s the spirit.”

One of the nurses removed the ear plug left in one ear and – whoa. Things tilted again, and he closed his eyes. His sense of balance was all shot to hell. He was tired, fuck he was tired. “Where is he?” Frank said. Sounds changed, the gurney stopped, someone was cutting open his pants leg. There was a needle in his arm. “Zhang.” He tried to catch her arm but as soon as he opened his eyes the nausea grew worse. He needed to be... he needed to be somewhere. Elsewhere. “Where.”

“Sit tight,” she said.

Fuck, they were pumping him full of drugs, and he heard her boots walk away. “Zhang!” But no one answered.

 

Time passed, maybe five minutes, maybe an hour. Frank could feel his own heartbeat in his leg, the pain dulled by the good drugs. He tried again to open his eyes, and this time it didn’t make him want to hurl his own guts out.

“Where,” he said.

“Damn, you got a one-track mind.” Zhang was holding out a plastic cup with a straw and he took it gratefully. Fuck he was parched. “Murdock’s out of surgery; he’s in the ICU.”

Frank pushed against the bed to sit up. “I want to see him.” He twisted so his legs were dangling over the side of the bed, and the throbbing in his thigh intensified. One pant leg had been cut away. There was something around his wrist, too. His vest was hanging from the railing at the foot of the bed, and he put it back on, then his sweatshirt. It was a bit stiff with blood in places, but he felt better with them on. More himself. That’s who he was, right? A skull, and blood.

“There’s a wheelchair waiting for you.”

“You’re not my baby-sitter, Zhang.”

“Oh, I am. I’ll have you know I’m very good at wheelchair driving, too. But I got you crutches.” She held them out to him and he snatched them. Kid smirked at him.

“Don’t need a baby-sitter.”

“Uh huh.”

He put weight on his good leg, tried the bad one. Well, okay, he’d need the crutches. “Why you?” He started for the door.

“I asked.”

“You _asked_?” Who would ask to guard him? He’d seen the way most agents looked at him. Shit, where was the ICU?

“That way,” Zhang said. He followed after her. “I wanted to thank you.” What the hell.

He didn’t ask what about, because they’d reached the ICU and he could see Matt. He could see him behind the window, as white as the sheets and with too many tubes going in and out of him. He wasn’t breathing on his own yet. Alive. Before he could push the door, Madani was here.

“You can’t go in.”

“Let me in.”

“No. No visits for now.” Frank tried to push her aside, but she didn’t budge. “Take a look at yourself, Frank. Even if visits were allowed, they wouldn't allow you in. They’re keeping him in there for at least two more hours. I’ll drive you to your place, so you can wash and change. You don’t want him to see you looking like that, do you?”

“ _See_ me.”

Madani rolled her eyes. “Smell you, or whatever it is he does.”

Maybe he could give him something to wake up to, at least. Something he could feel and touch and smell. Frank’s hand went to his wrist and his blood went cold. The rosary wasn’t there. Shit, had he lost it? What…

“Here,” Zhang said. “Doc removed it earlier, so I kept it for you. Tried to clean the blood, but…”

Frank took it, and he could breathe a little easier. “It’s his,” he said.

“Do you want him to have it?”

“Yeah.”

“All right. All right, we’ll do that.” Zhang gently peeled his fingers off of it, and knocked on the window to talk to a nurse inside. _Hope_ , it said. _Faith_. The nurse took the rosary and brought it to Matt’s bed, put it under his lax hand. Frank closed his eyes. It was home. And soon he’d take Matt home too, and it would all be over. Yeah.

“Let’s go, then,” Frank said.

Zhang saluted them when he and Madani left, and he remembered he hadn’t asked what she wanted to thank him for.

 

It was early morning. He hadn’t realized, back inside the hospital, but now he was in Madani’s car he could see the sky turning pink, bakeries and coffee shops opening. The dry blood itched, and the scrub pants he’d borrowed were itchy too.

“You're her family’s hero,” Madani said.

“Uh?”

“Zhang.”

“She said she wanted to thank me.”

Madani stopped at a drive-through. “Coffee?”

“Yeah.”

She handed him a cup. It burned his hands and his tongue and that was exactly what he needed. “Zhang’s brother has been in a wheelchair for about 10 years. Stray bullet, from the Dogs of Hell. You’ve been the family hero since you took them out.”

“Uh.”

“She told me that’s what made her decide to go into law enforcement. Her brother.”

Fuck. Frank looked outside. He didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing. Madani kept silent until they reached the shelter.

Everything was quiet when she parked, but the light was on in the office. He limped to the stairs, but before he reached them Carlie and Naye came out.

“Well,” Carlie said. “You shaved. That's weird.”

They were looking at his chest. He zipped up his sweatshirt, but it was pointless. They’d seen the skull. Madani had probably told them, anyway. “I’m sorry. I never wanted…” He shrugged. Never wanted to hurt them, scare them. Put them at risk. What could he say?

“It sure explains a lot,” Naye said. “How’s Matt?”

“Alive.” Ghost-white and unconscious and hooked up to too many machines. But they looked relieved.

“So what should we call you, then?”

Frank shrugged. “Don’t have to. Be out of your hair soon.”

“You live and work here,” Carlie said.

Oh. “I should, uh.” He gestured at the stairs and focused on his crutches, taking the stairs one at a time.

Once inside his apartment, he looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. There was blood on his face, and grime, and bruises, and cuts. He hadn’t felt anything when he’d gone through the second floor, but it looked like he’d taken quite a few hits after all. He took off his vest, his boots, his clothes. There was a thick bandage over his thigh, and smaller one on his forearm. Huh. He touched it. There were a few stitches under it. Okay. Okay. He removed the brace around his wrist, washed his hands, watched the water run dark and dirty. Madani was right, he should clean up. He went into the kitchen and got plastic wrap out to try and keep the dressings dry.

He didn’t look much better after his shower, but at least he was clean. He looked around. What should he bring back to the hospital? He took a change of clothes for himself, stuffed them into a duffel bag. Okay, what else? He looked at the bed. Oh. He dug through Matt’s drawer, extracted the softest sweatpants and zip-up shirts he could find. A few pairs of socks, the kind Frank found ridiculous and Matt wouldn’t live without. There was a folded cane there too, and he took it.

Frank stood up with a groan. He added some toiletries, along with his own phone and charger to the clothes, then made for the door. His eyes fell on Lucy’s bowls. Shit. He should call Karen. Nelson. Maggie. His battery was dead, though. He limped back downstairs and found Madani, Naye, and Carlie eating bagels from the bakery nearby.

“Want one?” Naye asked.

Frank looked at them all, sitting them all chill while Matt… was he awake now?

Madani wrapped a couple in paper towels and held them out to him. “You can eat them on the way.”

“Go to the boyfriend,” Carlie said. “We’re expecting a report!” She waved her phone at him.

“K.” Frank was just tired. He just wanted to lie down and feel Matt’s weight on the mattress next to him, sleep with his nose in Red’s hair or maybe feel Matt’s head on his chest, like he did when he needed Frank’s heartbeat to lull him to sleep. He wanted Lucy snuffling at their feet and a billboard lighting up the room and an alarm clock that talked.

The bagels were good. Madani didn’t say much as she drove, and he remembered she hadn’t slept either. She didn’t show it. She parked close to the door, got them through the corridors that all looked the same, talked with the guards she’d posted around the hospital. More people than Matt had been injured. Frank had forgotten. He didn’t care.

They didn’t go to the ICU but to a different, private room where they’d set up Matt. He was still pale, still unmoving. There were fewer tubes. Frank dropped the bag and the crutches, sat on the chair closest to the bed, crossed his arms over the covers for a pillow, and went to sleep right there and then, his fingers tangled with Matt’s and the rosary.

 

Something was touching his face, his hair – well, what was left of it. He’d shorn it the day before. Frank blinked, and raised his head, and winced at how his entire body hurt.

“Hey, you’re awake,” he said. He didn’t say, _you’re alive_ , but the words were ringing through his skull. Matt’s tried to speak, but if his throat was as dry as his lips… “You thirsty?” Frank poured water in the cup on the bedside table. “Here you go,” he said. “There's a straw.”

Matt took a few sips, but he still seemed pretty out of it. His eyes rolled lazily every which way, like they never did the rest of the time. Frank wondered if he could have hallucinations. Those were brain things, after all, not eye things.

“Frank,” Matt finally said.

“Yeah, I’m here.”

“Here?”

“A hospital. You were shot.” And Frank would find out who did it. “Doctors said you’ll be fine.”

“You?”

“I’m good.”

“Oh.” He only breathed for a moment, as if a couple syllables had exhausted him. Maybe they had. “Frank?” Matt’s hand slid a little over the covers, searching for something.

Frank caught it and kissed his fingers. “Yeah.”

“You… Where’s…” Matt's fingers fluttered over Frank’s face.

“Miss it?”

“Diff’rent.”

Frank hummed, and put Matt’s hand back on the bed. “You’ll live.”

“Kay,” he said. Matt was back asleep before Frank could say anything else.

He watched him for a while, watched his chest go up and down, slow and steady. He looked into his duffel bag, and got his phone and charger out. He plugged it in and waited a few minutes before calling Karen, first freshening up and asking a nurse if guide dogs were allowed.

“Hey,” he said.

“Frank!” She hissed. “Where have you been? I’ve heard – are you OK? Are you both OK?”

“Yeah. We’re at the hospital. How’s Lucy?”

“Lucy’s fine. _She_ is not in a hospital! What happened?”

“I can’t – Matt’s sleeping. I don’t want to wake him up.”

“Evasion, Frank. That’s called evasion.”

“Look, can you bring Lucy? We’ll talk then.”

“What hospital?”

“Bronx-Lebanon.”

Karen sighed on the other end of the line. “You owe me.”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll call Foggy and Maggie, okay?”

“Yeah, all right.”

“I swear you’re going to give me gray hairs, the both of you. Later, Frank.”

“Later. Thank you, Karen.”

She huffed before hanging up, but right after that she sent him a picture of Lucy with her one ear perked up and her leash dangling in front of her. Forgiven, right?

 

Matt woke up a few times in the next couple hours, never for long but every time he seemed a little more aware. Nurses and doctors came in and out, poked at the medical equipment, and once made Frank wait outside for some tests. He got more (shitty) coffee at the cafeteria, wandered the halls until he could go back in again. Madani had posted agents around the hospital, and he noticed some people were cuffed to their beds. He remembered how that sucked.

He finally could go back in, and Matt was still (mostly) awake. His head turned into Frank’s direction, but he frowned a little.

“Hi?”

“Hey. It’s me.” Hadn’t Matt recognized him? He usually did, right?

“Frank?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Matt’s face smoothed out. “I can’t see,” he said. No shit. Had he… _forgotten_ he was blind? “No, I mean… the drugs. They’re giving me too much, I can’t…”

Oh. “Hearing on the fritz?”

Matt’s lips quirked up. “Everything on the fritz.” He held out his hand, and Frank took it. It hadn’t even been aimed in his direction. “Too much, not enough. Hear everything, then nothing. Don’t want them.”

“Drugs are good, for now. You don’t want to feel this.”

Matt didn’t answer for a while. The drugs, yeah, and all the hits he’d taken. No wonder his head was a mess. Frank thought he’d finally fallen back asleep, until he said, “Please?”

“Yeah, what?”

“Can we leave?”

“You know you can’t. Doc said a week.”

“I hate hospitals,” he whispered. “I hate them.”

“No one likes hospitals, Red.” Not everyone had woken up blind in one and not everyone could smell and hear death like he could, but… “You got shot, remember?”

“I…” His head moved on the pillow. “Someone’s dying, Frank.” No shit. Someone was always dying. It was a hospital.

“But you’re not, yeah? You’re good.” What else could he say?

He held Matt’s hand until it relaxed again, and then held it some more.

 

There was a soft knock on the door, and Frank got up to open it. He noticed there was a new guard by the door.

“Whoa, I’d forgotten that face,” Nelson said as soon as he looked out.

Frank ran a hand on his chin. “Boo. Ma’am,” he added for Maggie. She didn’t seem surprised to see _that face_ , as Nelson had put it. Then Lucy butted her head on his thigh and he winced.

“What’s wrong?” Karen asked. Her eyes zeroed in on the crutch.

Frank caught Lucy’s harness before she jumped on Matt’s bed and pulled the door closed behind him. “Down, girl. She just went straight for the hole in my leg. I’m fine,” he added when Karen’s eyes widened.

“I thought that was Matt’s catchphrase,” Nelson said. “Now I know why you go so well together.”

“How is he?” Maggie asked.

“Asleep.” Frank looked down at her. She didn’t seem fazed to see him even though she probably knew who he was, by now. “Go in, if you’d like. We… can go have a coffee, yeah?”

She pushed the door and made a beeline for the bed, and Frank let Lucy in behind her. She’d be better in there than in the cafeteria, and Maggie wouldn’t let her wake Matt. Karen set the bag with Lucy’s food and bowl right inside by the by the door and looked stricken when she glanced at Matt, but she didn’t say anything.

“Cafeteria’s downstairs,” Frank said. He looked at Karen. “Coffee’s not worse than yours, I guess.” Nelson smiled.

They found a quiet corner, and Frank saw them notice he took the seat with the best view of the doors and with a wall at his back. He dared them to comment, but they didn’t seem to be much impressed by his frown. Seemed like he was losing it.

“So, what happened?” Karen would have had her pad and pen out if she’d still been a reporter.

“And how did you end up…” Nelson waved his hand at him. Limping? Shaved? “…like that, and Matt in a hospital bed? At least it’s an actual hospital, so I guess it’s progress.”

“Doc said he should be okay if he takes it slow,” Frank said.

“Sounds like Matt,” Karen said. “And you?”

“I’ve had worse.”

“That’s not very reassuring, coming from you.”

“Yeah, well. I’m hard to kill.” Frank’s eyes kept jumping to the door every time someone came in.

“That you are,” Nelson said. “But seriously, the tough guy routine? One day you won’t win. I don’t want you to take Matt down with you.”

“I won’t.” But he appreciated Nelson’s stubborn protectiveness.

“And you know. If anything happened to you…”

“What?”

“Well, remember when you were gassed?” Nelson sighed. “God, it feels like it was months ago.”

“10 days.”

“Yeah, well. It wasn’t pretty.”

“I don’t remember much of it.”

“Well, _we_ do,” Karen said. “So now, will you spill?”

She pushed a coffee and a slice of pie in his direction, and fine, okay. Maybe he could, now.

 

Zhang was in front of Matt’s room when they came back up, bright-eyed and fresh-faced in civilian clothes, and probably not on much more than a couple hours’ worth of sleep. She was chatting with the blond guard Frank had seen earlier, and he wondered what she was doing here.

“Back already?”

“Well, I got you something.”

“I didn’t.” Frank saw that Karen and Nelson were eyeing her with curiosity, so he introduced them quickly. “Nun still in there?”

“Yeah, she is. I brought you some shirts,” she said, holding out a bag.

“Shirts?”

“Yeah. My brother works for home, does designs and sells them. I didn’t know what sizes or designs to take so I grabbed a bunch.”

Karen took the bag from him to free one of his hand. She’d noticed he really needed the crutch. “Come on Frank, I’m curious!”

He pulled one out, unfolded it, and lowered it. “Zhang.” She beamed at him. “Zhang, what is this?”

“It’s a shirt.”

“Oh my god, let me see!” Karen snatched the shirt from Frank’s hand and started giggling when she saw the cutesy skull on it.

Nelson choked when he looked at it and he got another shirt out, then another. “This is gold,” he said. “No, seriously, I want to buy them all!” He bunched the fabric in his hand and patted it. “Good quality, too. And soft. I know what I’m getting Matt for his birthday.”

“Frank, you should see your face,” Karen said.

He narrowed his eyes at them turned to go into Matt’s room. You can’t slam a door quietly, but Frank gave it his best try anyway.

 

“He’s asleep,” Maggie said.

Frank patted Lucy’s head before she could throw herself at him again, and he leaned his crutch against the bed. “Did he wake up?”

“Not really. A few minutes here and there.”

He dragged the chair in the corner closer to the bed and sat with a sigh. Nelson and Karen would probably come in soon. “You know who I am. What I’ve done.” Frank kept his eyes on Matt’s face. It was slightly pinched and still so pale.

“Yes. I’ve known for a while.” And Maggie’d said nothing, huh. Like mother, like son all right.

“You OK with that?”

“Matthew’s father punched men for a living. Matthew… well, you know what he does.” She shrugged. “There’s violence in the Bible, too.”

“That’s not the same.” He’d killed, with no mercy or remorse. He’d do it all again. He didn’t believe in redemption, not like Matt.

“No, I guess it’s not.” She stood and smoothed her habit. “I abandoned him. He needed me, and I couldn't be there for him, and I left. Are _you_ OK with that?” Frank didn’t answer. “We all carry something, Pe- Frank. The question is not _what_ we carry, but how.”

She bent over the bed and it looked like she was about to kiss Matt’s forehead for a while, but she only brushed his hair back after a moment of hesitation. “You should,” he said. Maggie looked at him. “You want to kiss him, kiss him. You think you have time, you think it can wait. You don’t know what can happen.” And then. Then, it was too late.

“It would be selfish of me.”

“Pretty sure he won’t mind.” Matt would probably have an attack if she did it while he was awake, but it was a start. God, Frank missed his kids. He missed Maria. He’d give anything to hold them again, to… Fuck. He’d kill ten times as many assholes as he had if it brought them back, a hundred times. Nothing would bring them back. He wiped his eyes, and when he blinked them open again Maggie was straightening back up. So, she’d done it. Good for them.

Matt’s head moved a little on his pillow, and Maggie took a few steps back. “I should see if anyone needs me.”

“Yeah,” Frank said.

“You still have to finish fixing that bathroom, once your leg is healed.”

“I will. God’s work and all.”

She smiled. “Well, I hope God would do it for free.”

“Too bad I’m not him, then.”

“God is where he should be and so are we, Frank.”

He shook his head at her back. Cryptic nun bullshit. But what else could you expect?

Once she was gone, Nelson and Karen came in. Matt was waking up, but he seemed lost, and when they got near the bed he frowned and turned his head left and right. He was… he was scared, Frank realized. Yeah, meds were fucking him up all right. Still needed them.

“Hey, Red.” Matt stilled. “You hear me?”

“How many… too many?”

“Your buddy Nelson and Karen are here.”

“Oh.”

“Hi, Matt,” Karen said. “Didn’t bring a balloon this time, but maybe tomorrow?” She made her voice cheery, but her face said something else.

“She brought Lucy instead,” Nelson added. “And I brought my very own self.”

Matt frowned. “Are you real? I can’t…” He shook his head, slow and confused.

He couldn't place them. Either because he couldn't hear their heartbeats, or make them out from each other, or something. Frank took Matt’s hand in his, set his fingers on his wrist. “Can you feel me?” Matt should be able to feel his blood pulsing through, maybe use it as an anchor point.

“Frank?”

“Yeah.”

“Maggie?”

“She was here, remember?”

“Real?”

“Yeah.” Fuck, Nelson and Karen looked ready to faint. Frank looked at them as he went on. “You got shot, then you got surgery.” Not counting what happened before, but better keep it simple for now. “You’re not hallucinating, all right? It’s the drugs.”

“Hate ’em.”

“Yeah, I know. Everyone does. You’ll be better in a few hours, yeah? Just sleep.”

“Don’t leave?”

“You bet I’m not, Red.”

“Kay.”

Once he was asleep again, Frank extracted his hand from Matt’s and then pointed at the door with his crutch. Nelson and Karen followed, and their faces said it all.

“God, I didn’t think… you said he was shot, but that…” Her eyes were very wide.

“I thought I’d seen him in bad shape before, but Karen’s right. That’s worse than I could imagine.”

Maybe they’d never seen guys with tubes running from everywhere, red sludge dripping slowly from their chests into transparent boxes, showing for all the world to see how their insides were fucked up. Maybe they’d never seen anyone stuck in that state where you didn't understand anything, didn’t feel anything, where there just was exhaustion and terror and confusion. Maybe they’d never seen anyone get better afterwards, or maybe they’d only seen it go wrong. Frank had seen both – soldiers dying from a shallow knife wound that got infected, others surviving a bullet to the head. He could see his reflection in the window, and he looked away. Damn bullet. “Maybe you lack imagination, Nelson.”

“What did the doctors say?” Karen asked.

Frank shrugged. “Everything good so far. Too soon to say more.”

“And you?”

“I’m f…” Nelson raised his eyebrows, and Frank scowled at him. He was _not_ as bad as Matt, all right? “Shot in the leg, not too bad. Just muscle. Sprained wrist.”

“Do you know who…” She waved a hand at the door.

“Who shot Matt?” She nodded. “Could be one of Madani’s. He didn’t know who he was fighting, and they didn’t either.”

“Or not?”

“Or not. He’d managed to get some assholes when he escaped, but not all so.” Frank leaned his back against the wall. His thigh was throbbing, but he didn’t want to take more pain meds. He wanted to be sharp, and pain didn’t dull his focus like they did. “I’ll find out who it was.”

“Don’t get charged with murder again, please,” Nelson said.

“What, don’t want to be my attorney this time?”

“God no, I’m still having nightmares over that trial.”

“Yeah, well.” Couldn’t blame him. Frank tried not to think too much about it himself. “I didn’t really help.”

They all stood there, silent and awkward and useless. Frank wanted to get back in the room, watch Matt’s face and listen to his breathing and just – be there.

“We’ll be back tomorrow, okay? Just call if you need anything,” Karen said after a while.

“Are you keeping Lucy?”

“Yeah, I… yeah. Hospital said guide dogs were allowed.” Not that Matt would need to be guided anywhere for a while but he’d hinted she helped in other ways, and the nurse hadn’t questioned him.

“Okay. Well.” Karen hesitated then hugged him, and Nelson thankfully didn’t follow suit.

“You take care, okay? Of yourself too,” Nelson said. “You’re good for each other and, um.”

“You’re embarrassing everyone, Nelson,” Frank told him.

“Fine, you win. Come on, Karen: let’s leave before he breaks my neck for being nice and supportive.”

Karen snickered, and Frank waited until they’d turned the corner before limping back inside. Lucy wagged her tail and set her head on his good leg when he sat down, smart girl. Walks would be short for the next few days, unless he could strong-arm someone to do it… maybe Zhang. He could probably trust her with Lucy.

Red would tell him to have more faith in people, Frank thought as his eyes fell on the rosary Maggie had left in Matt’s loose hands. Frank wasn’t sure he could. But maybe he could make a few exceptions, like when a nurse came in with a cot for him to sleep on. Just once in a while.

 

Zhang proved herself to be a reliable dog walker, so Frank tried not to resent the cutesy skull-themed stickers (some with band-aids drawn right where he’d been shot, what the fuck) she’d felt were appropriate to add to Lucy’s harness. She’d managed to get the night shift in front of Matt’s room. She came a little earlier and left a little later so she could take Lucy around a few blocks, and in the morning, she usually came back with coffee and baked goods she shared with Frank before she welcomed the sunrise with a cigarette.

As for Frank, he catnapped all through the day, in between daily visits from Maggie, Karen, and Nelson. Doctors and nurses kept coming in and out, too, sometimes grumbling about how Matt shouldn’t have been out of the ICU so soon and how come national security took precedence over the well-being of a patient and who did that agent think she was. They weren’t happy about the armed operatives milling about, either.

Of course, as soon as Matt had finally shaken off the anesthesia and was awake for more than five consecutive minutes, he’d started refusing the pain meds. Frank hadn’t taken sides between Matt and the doc, though. He couldn’t. Pain wouldn’t help him recover, but then again pain didn’t stop them, him and Red. And Frank could guess how they fucked him up. Gunner, that time he’d broken his leg badly and they’d given him opioids? He’d tripped balls. Probably seen Jesus or something. It had been a weird reaction, they’d said, but Red? Red was the king of weird reactions. So Frank had just sat there and let Matt scowl and refused to say anything other than, “It’s his choice.” Because it was.

The worst though, the worst was the nightmares he had. Fuck, the nightmares. Frank could yell at him for being an idiot, but he couldn’t wake him up from wherever he went – he’d tried, and almost gotten his nose broken (again). _Unfamiliar places_ , Maggie had said. He’d apparently had them in his first weeks at St Agnes. Frank wondered how he hadn’t scared Nelson out of their dorm when they first started rooming together, but maybe he’d simply not slept. Maybe crept back in the orphanage or Fogwell’s to catch some shuteye. Who knew what kind of idiotic shit he did back then?

Matt woke up drenched in a cold sweat on Thursday morning. He still had the chest tubes in, he had fully shaken off the anesthesia only the day before but he’d managed to be all charming and shit when Carlie and Naye had visited in the afternoon. There had been the smile, the whole I’m-just-a-blind-lawyer shtick, and even the I’m-fine-really routine which they didn’t buy at all but pretended to for his sake. He thought he’d fooled them, too. Carlie had rolled her eyes and didn’t mention all the wires and tubes, and Naye had made faces when looking at his chart, and then they’d gone and Matt had seemed to fall asleep peacefully. It didn’t last.

Frank had first tried to get Lucy to come up the bed but he’d thrashed too much for her to stay; then he’d tried talking to him and putting more blankets on the bed, taken his shirt off and given it to Matt so his smell would calm him, but nothing worked. He’d moved so much Frank had been grateful for the bed railings. He’d have fallen off the narrow bed without them. Zhang put on nature sounds playlists and other hippie shit she swore by, but it was all pretty useless, and he kept on being trapped in whatever dark place he was in. Trying to wake him up didn't work, nothing helped, and Frank didn’t want to call a nurse and have them inject him with something, anything. So he just made sure he didn’t hurt himself or dislodge all that he was connected to, and it was a long, long night.

Frank didn’t sleep at all, not even when Matt had calmed down – what if it started all over again? – and in the morning Matt looked so much more exhausted and sick than he had the day before. He looked like when Frank had first seen him through the ICU window, gray and drawn, and given Zhang’s once-over when she brought him coffee Frank probably wasn’t much better.

“Hey,” he said when Matt opened his eyes.

“Frank?” He started to move, then stopped. “Oh. I’d forgotten.”

“Tubes? Yeah, they suck.”

The sun was just rising, and they made the red in Matt’s hair and beard stand out. The hollows under his eyes, too. He turned his face into the light. Maybe he could feel it, feel the weak heat of the sun. “I want to get out,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“I’m right where I want to be.”

“A hospital? Come on, Frank.”

“Got nowhere else to be, you know?” He took the railings down around the bed and sat on the edge. “As good a place as any.” He bent over Matt and made to kiss him, but Matt turned his head away.

“I’m gross.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

“Sure, a shower. You’re full of holes and you can’t even sit on your own.”

Red frowned and tried to push himself up on his forearms, but he didn’t go much farther than a couple inches above the pillow. “I will.”

“You won’t. Not today. Can get an aide to give you a sponge bath or something.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t like… no.”

“You don’t like what?” He didn’t answer. “Matt.” Oh, the mulish Murdock mug was out. “Do you want me to do it?”

“What? No. No, Frank, you shouldn't – I’ll be fine.”

“You don’t want me to do it?” He gently punched Matt’s shoulder. “Hey, you did it for me when I was gassed, remember? You helped me.” Matt wanted to say yes, he could see it. Just a little push now. “I brought some of your fancy stuff here.” The gentle soap that smelled like the one they’d used for Lisa, for Frank Jr. Maybe it was the same.

“You did?” And he looked so grateful, too.

“Is that what you don’t like? Hospital soap?”

“I just… I don’t like it when they touch me.”

“The gloves?”

“The… the everything.”

“Then they won’t touch you, I swear. Not for that.”

And Matt had smiled then, so Frank had gone in search of staff. The aide, Sean, that came in was a big, burly guy; he was pushing a cart with bathing supplies, a basin to wash hair, and fresh bedding.

He made Frank wait outside while he did things with bedpans and then cleaning what needed to be cleaned down there, and he didn’t protest much when Frank insisted he’d be the one to bathe Matt and that they’d use their own soap. He only said, “You sure?” and looked at his thigh.

Frank shrugged and said, “You stay and tell me what to do,” and that was that.

Matt started the whole process rather tense, but little by little he relaxed when he realized only Frank would touch him. The water was not too hot, the soap easy to rinse, and the sponge soft enough; and when he washed Matt’s hair he made sure to dig his fingers in and maybe, you know, he kissed his forehead. A slow swipe on the arm, drops of water sliding down his neck that tickled Matt and made him twitch, trailing a finger after the sponge on some of his older scars just because he could, just because it was them. _You’ll get back up and fight again_ , he didn’t say. But there would be more scars, he knew. Scars were good, they meant you were still alive. Better than a hole that would never close, yeah? Better than brains splattered everywhere, better than your face turned to ground meat. Better than six feet deep.

“Frank,” Matt said, and he took his wrist and squeezed with what strength he had.

“Yeah.”

Sean murmured some advice here and there, helped him to keep Matt warm and stuck fresh towels under his damp hair; he helped Frank move Red without fucking up the dressings or the tubes. He held out new scrubs for Matt to wear, but Frank shook his head and went to dig in the bag he’d brought. Karen had left a few more clothes the day before too, but those were for the day Matt would leave. For now, it would be all frayed edges and fleecy clothes.

“I got you some of those ugly sweatshirts you like so much,” he said. He put a few of them in Matt’s hands, let him choose one along with pants and socks.

Sean was finding it all rather funny and kept smiling at them. “You guys are cute, you know?”

Frank glared. “We’re not cute,” he said. Maybe the effect was not as strong as he’d have liked though, because Matt couldn’t find the sleeve and he had to guide his hand into it, and then Matt pouted when he realized he couldn’t zip it closed because of the tubes. The pout disappeared when Frank slipped the thickest, most ridiculous socks ever on his feet and he’d achieved Peak Cozy Burrito. Sean’s grin intensified.

“That’s nice,” Red said.

“Gonna be even nicer when we change the sheets.” Frank looked around the room. “Move you to my cot or the chair?”

“We can change them without – ” Sean started to say.

“Cot,” Matt said.

So Sean rolled his eyes and pushed the cot next to the bed and helped Frank move Matt all while mumbling about how this wasn’t proper procedure but what could he do, he wasn’t making the decisions here, right?

Frank sat next to Matt’s hips while Sean busied himself with the bedding and thought yeah, okay. Red was cute when he was burying his nose in the pillow and smiling and his eyes were all soft and aimed mostly but not quite in Frank’s direction. After a while though, he skimmed his hand over the bed until it touched Frank’s thigh, and stopped right at the edge of the dressing.

“You didn’t tell me about that,” Red said, “But I could hear you limping.”

“No big deal.”

“You’re hurt.”

“I didn’t get shot in the chest.”

“Hey, I still have all my lungs. And ribs.”

“Still have all my legs.”

Matt tried to curl around Frank then remembered this was a bad idea. “We just got a few more holes, right?”

“Yeah.”

Sean got another aide to get Matt back into his own bed and Frank didn’t say anything. His thigh did hurt like a bitch now, and he knew it needed a break if he wanted to be operational fast enough. He had a feeling he might have to.

 

Matt got steadily better and after a couple more days, decided he should try to leave (read: fall out of) the bed on his own, then started to pull the chest tubes out himself. The doc screamed bloody murder at him for five minutes straight and right after that Maggie did the same for twice as long _and_ with Scriptures. He finally begged Nelson to bring him his laptop so he could work. Nelson, bless his devious lawyer brain, listed all the ways in which working while he shouldn’t could end up with a malpractice suit.

Then Matt was cleared to start walking again, and now the challenge was to prevent him from checking himself out too early. He would anyway, but Frank was hoping to keep Matt in the hospital at least one more day.

 

Madani came on the fourth evening, looking like she hadn’t slept more than ten hours since Hunts Point. She looked at Lucy settled half over Matt’s legs in defiance of everything the medical personnel had said, and Matt’s relaxed face as he petted her and talked to her. It was a welcome sight, to see him quiet and happy.

“Frank,” Madani said, and Frank stepped outside to talk with her. “How is he?”

He shrugged. “Do you know who did this?”

“Not yet.” He wasn’t sure he believed her. Who was to blame first, anyway? Was it the one who’d shot Matt, or the one who’d hit him over the head one too many times and made him lose his focus enough to get shot? “But you’re still in danger; we haven’t found everyone. We haven’t found yet whoever was pulling all those strings, but we think we got most of the thugs they’d used as henchmen, at least.”

“Most?”

“But not all, no.” So they were still at risk. “That’s why I had Murdock put in a private room, that and in case he let slip too much.”

“Docs are already curious about how he got so many injuries.”

“They won’t ask questions.”

“Whoa. Sounding a bit Godfather here, Madani.”

“You’re recognizable enough as it is.” His mug was fine, all right? What was it with people and his face? Nelson didn’t like it either, and Matt kept making sad eyes whenever he didn’t find Frank’s beard or longer hair.

Madani looked down at his leg. “How’s the wound?”

“Healing.” Frank glanced inside the room. Matt and Lucy were still on the bed but they both looked on alert, heads cocked and and too still. “Red?”

“There’s… I’m not sure. How many floors are there? We’re on the fifth, right?”

“Don’t tell me you can hear through that many floors, Murdock.”

“There are… vibrations. Either a new subway line is running just under the building, or it’s something else.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. Vibrations, like… small charges, maybe? Explosives? Vibrations. Unless they’re excavating under the hospital?” Matt reached out to put his hand flat on the wall. “Getting closer to right under here.”

“Shit. No, there’s nothing around here, I’d know about it.”

Frank drew the curtains closed and Madani started talking into her comm, sending agents to check everything and be ready for an attack.

“Get me a gun.”

“You’re under protection already.”

“Get me a gun, Madani.” Frank looked at Matt, at the tilt of his head. “And a couple earpieces.”

She sighed and gave him the one in her holster. “For now.” Big of her, he thought.

“Thanks,” he said.

She went outside to talk to her team, and Frank stayed inside with a hand on Lucy’s quivering flank to help settle her, right next to Matt’s. Their fingers touched, and it helped anchor him, too. After a few minutes, Madani came back with a new gun for Frank, and the two earpieces he’d asked for.

“Keep in touch with those. And Murdock, if you hear anything…” She’d learned to listen to him, at least.

“I’ll tell you.”

“You do that.” She knocked on the door frame and a young, baby-faced agent he’d seen before stood to attention. “This is agent Eriksson. If – when they come for you, he’s here to make sure they don’t succeed.”

Eriksson saluted him awkwardly, and Frank tried not to roll his eyes. Not a proper salute, no. But he was trying, Frank supposed. He was respectful. Frank should have more faith in people, yeah. Well, that’s what Matt would say, at any rate. Kid was here as their last barrier, but Frank knew better: _he_ was the last barrier. _He_ would stand until the last.

Frank turned off the light in the room and settled in to wait. He could hear quite a lot of activity outside, wheels rattling in the corridors and more ambulances in the streets. More and more patients were on the move; they were emptying the lower floors by either sending patients upstairs or to other hospitals. He could feel the vibrations now, through the soles of his boots. They made his thigh hurt. _We’re going to trap them here_ , Madani had said. _On your floor_.

Matt touched his arm. “Frank.”

“Yeah,” he whispered back.

“They’re here.”

And that’s how it started. The comms came alive with shooting, yelling; they’d busted through the lower levels via an old, abandoned sewer pipe. Assholes hadn’t expected to meet with guns in their faces, but Madani’s operatives were not enough down there from the sounds of it. Frank tried to remember that was the plan, weaken them a little but let them think they had met all the resistance they would on the lower levels, then meet the rest of the force between the fourth and fifth floors. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

They were getting closer, and Frank only had enough for about 20 shots. Matt, one hand still on the wall, would bring the mic to his mouth sometimes and say, _check the north stairwell_ , or _third floor, send more._ Madani’s reinforcements were on their way, and you could hear choppers over the building. Shit, this was a hospital, and now it was a war zone.

Frank wanted to get out, he wanted to get to the fight, but Lucy was trembling and Matt was unable to fight and Frank, Frank couldn’t limp more than 10 feet without needing his crutch. So he waited in the low emergency lighting, an ear on Lucy’s quiet whines and another on the comms, a hand on his gun and another on Matt’s leg in case he got ideas.

And then, they were on the fifth floor. There was no civilian left here, only Homeland Security operatives guarding a few sensitive patients. The shooting was getting closer, and Frank left his post by the bed to stand by the door. Eriksson was still there, not jumping into action to help his buddies but keeping his post. Good kid.

“Alright there?”

“You shouldn't be standing, sir.”

“You a doctor, Eriksson?”

“No sir.”

Frank sat on the chair by the door where Karen usually dropped her giant purse and waited. He had a feeling he’d be on his feet soon enough. His blood was right there under his skin, warm and thrumming and eager. So eager. Every shot, every burst of rifle fire made him feel more awake, more ready, more… shit. More alive.

“Frank, don’t…”

But Matt would understand, yeah? He would.

Frank glared at the kid when he tried to stop him, and made his way to the next corridor. He had a thought for his vest, but it was more a symbol than anything useful now, with all the hits it had taken. He didn’t need it anyway. There were bursts of fire, shouting, and it didn’t smell like a hospital anymore. It smelled like piss and shit and blood, it smelled like death. His leg didn’t hurt at all. He didn’t feel anything, didn’t have anything in his mind but move forward. Identify and eliminate the enemy. Move forward again. So he did.

First corner, quick look, spot and aim and shoot, one down. 17 bullets left. Slip into an empty room, wait until one of them walked past, kill them, grab a rifle, repeat. 13 bullets now, half empty magazine in the rifle from the weight. Move forward. Look, point, shoot; look, point, shoot. Again and again. Empty gun, and an operative handed him another handgun. They knew he was with them. He moved on.

He heard voices, shouts – _man down, man down!_ Or, _they’re coming from the south stairwell too!_ Or, _stop, man, you can’t_ – he ignored it all. He wiped his face, sweat was getting into his eyes. He moved forward, and there were less of them now. Less assholes, less agents too, but they were containing the threat. They were beating them down. Frank dropped his empty weapon, took a knife sticking out from a body. Forward. Make it _no_ asshole standing, not a single one.

Then there was running and more yelling and it all came back from – fuck, it came back from a few corridors behind. From where Matt was. Frank’s focus slipped, and he lost grip of what he had to do. Shit, no, he had to go back. Fuck them, they weren’t his problem. They were _Madani’s_ problem. He turned back, and he didn’t care about anything but the voices ahead. Zhang, yelling something; Eriksson’s, ending abruptly.

When he got there, it was all over. First, his boots squelched in gore and brain matter. He reached the open door, and Eriksson was lying across the threshold. Shot in the throat, he was dead. Zhang’s eyes were wide open and her breathing quick, but she was standing above him guarding the room still, a dead guy with a bullet in his forehead right between the eyebrows a few feet ahead of her. She got him right as he turned the corner. Good aim. Zhang nodded to him and stepped aside to let Frank in.

Matt was standing there, one hand on the bed to help support him. There was blood on his sweatshirt, blood on his pants, blood on his hands. He’d torn open the stitches on his chest.

“Matt?”

“Is he dead? He’s not dead, right? Frank? I can hear his heartbeat, right?”

That was when Frank saw him. A guy in the corner, his head bashed in. That had been his brains, right outside. His head had cracked open on the corner of the table, probably hit the metal chair or the doorjamb on its way down. Frank knelt and felt for his pulse.

“Yeah, heart’s still beating.” A good candidate for organ transplant, more like.

“He’s not dead. He’s not dead.”

“No, Red. You didn’t kill him.” And Matt would never know about it, not if Frank had anything to say about it. “Armed guy coming at you, you react. That’s what we do. You do what you gotta do, you know?”

“Foggy hates it,” he said. “Karen hates it.”

Yeah, well. They weren’t trained. They couldn't understand, and that was a good thing. “You did good, Red. You’re good, yeah?” Adrenaline was crashing now, and Matt was all limp. Frank helped him sit on the bed and settled right next to him, Matt’s warm weight against his side.

“We got the all clear,” Zhang said, and Frank realized he’d lost his comm earlier. She looked at Matt. “Who…” Frank widened his eyes at her. Not now. She’d probably want to know how a blind, injured guy could lay down a merc, but it could wait. She would wait. “Need a doc?”

“The guy Matt knocked down probably does.”

“Oh.” She raised her eyebrows, but nodded. She’d got it. “Yeah, sure. Yeah.”

He could hear people hurrying in the halls again, but this time they were doctors and police and suits, not nazi motherfuckers. Very soon a couple medics got in and removed the body after a forensic guy took a few pictures, and then Madani came in. She didn’t say anything for a while, just stared at Matt. It was unnerving.

“You punch hard, for a guy with a few holes in him.”

“I didn’t kill him,” he said. It sounded more like a question. “His heart’s still beating.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be useful.” Someone would get a nazi heart and a nazi kidney or maybe nazi lungs, and _they_ ’d live. “I need answers, guys. I need to know what to spin.”

Matt was trembling slightly.

“You cold?” Frank asked.

“Lucy,” he said.

“Lucy? What about Lucy?”

“She’s in the bathroom. I put her in the bathroom.”

“All right. Madani will get her out, okay?”

Madani glared at them but opened the door, and Lucy was crouching right there behind it.

“Come on, girl,” Frank said. “Come on up.” The noise and smells must have terrified her, but she was a brave girl. She took her time, but she did finally jump up and join them on the bed, sprawling over both of them. “Good girl, yeah? You’re a good girl.”

“When you left,” Matt said. Frank waited. When he’d left, and let his bloodlust get the better of him. Again. “I hid her in there, when you left.”

“Okay. You were supposed to stay put.” And he wasn’t supposed to walk anywhere on his own yet, either, but of course he had.

“I was right there.” Matt pointed at the bathroom door, his finger unerringly correct and his eyes somewhere to the left of it. “When he got Eriksson.”

“Eriksson was doing his job,” Madani said.

“Yeah.” Matt sagged a little more. He was tired, or in shock, or both. “He was.”

But Eriksson had died for it, had died on protection duty, and that wouldn’t go down too well with Red.

A doc and a nurse got in and shooed Frank, Lucy, and Madani out to check on Matt and redo his stitches and whatever else they needed to do. So Frank thought, _coffee_. Zhang saw him trying to sneak out with Lucy and pointed out he looked like he’d swam through a swamp of blood and gunpowder and couldn’t go out in the streets like that. She pushed him in a restroom, threw a jacket at him and demanded he brought back coffees, plural, _and_ bagels once he’d washed his face. He complied, what else could he do? And Lucy needed a break from all those smells and noises.

Frank was relieved to get out of the hospital. He needed to figure things out. How close to the surface his thirst for fighting and killing was, how the Punisher came so easily to him, how he needed it. Liked it, even. How he wasn’t entirely himself without it, and how he wasn’t afraid of giving death. And then there was Matt, and the thing they had. Red wanted to believe in hope, to believe in faith. In life, yeah. But how could he have faith in Frank, then?

And what about the guy with the cracked skull? Matt clung to the idea he never set out to kill, but this guy, this guy was the first one that he’d know for sure he’d killed, intentionally or not. Because he’d learn about it, no doubt there. He’d overhear someone, he’d remember the sounds, he’d put it all together. He was smart. He said he was aware it could happen, aware it might very well have happened before, but he never _knew_. Not 100%. And then, where would all this hope go? Where would his faith go, the faith he had that he was doing the right thing?

Fuck, Frank wasn’t the guy for that. He could change a broken sink, you know? But he couldn’t fix people, he only killed them. That was who he was: Frank Castle, the Punisher. He’d been… dormant, for a while, but it couldn't last. It hadn’t lasted. A skull on the chest and a gun in each hand, _that_ was him – not whoever people like Matt or Karen or Carlie, even, thought he was.

Hope or Faith, those were for people like them. Not for people like Frank.

He turned back to the hospital once morning came, bleak and chilly. He drank his coffee as he walked, and handed Zhang her breakfast with just a quick nod before going to Matt’s room. He found him wearing jeans, one of Zhang’s brother’s shirts, and struggling to put on a sweatshirt. Frank didn’t move to help. He had to unlearn this shit. Lucy already had her harness and leash on.

“You going out?” Frank asked.

“Leaving. I can’t stay here any more.”

“Okay.” Probably signed an AMA, too. He watched him wrap a scarf around his neck, zip the sweatshirt closed with the ends of the scarf tucked inside. “Called a ride?”

“I thought, maybe I’d ask Karen. We could have breakfast together?” Matt took a few slow steps forward. He looked a bit confused, and Frank ignored it. He did, he really did. “If you’d like.”

“I’m not coming.”

“Oh.” He stood there without moving for a while, then reached out and touched Frank’s cheek, his neck. “You’re cold,” he said.

“Nah.” He was. Now he’d shaved and buzzed his hair off, he felt the difference. But it was nothing. It didn't matter. He'd get used to it again. It was nothing.

But of course Matt knew anyway, so he tugged his scarf out and unwound it from his neck. “There,” he said, holding it out.

“Matt…”

“You need it.” He pushed the scarf against Frank’s chest and held it there until Frank took it, his lips thin and white and so determined.

“Okay, I got it. I got it, Red.” He threw it over his shoulders.

Matt stepped back until he got to the bed and sat down. Lucy put her head on his knee, her eyes wide then closed in bliss when Matt scratched her behind one ear. She didn’t know yet, but Matt had guessed. “Frank,” he said. “I can’t keep her. Not right now.”

“Yeah. Just call me when you want her back, all right?” Fuck, he was looking so much like Frank Jr and Lisa, when he’d left on his last tour.

“Call you. You’re not lying,” Matt whispered. It sounded like he was talking to himself more than Frank.

“No.” Frank tried to stay where he was, to not get any closer. He tried hard. “Thank you for the scarf,” he said. Matt raised his hand and put his palm flat over it. Over Frank’s heart. Shit, he was feeling it, feeling his heartbeat through the wool. “I just don’t want to get blood on it, you know. When I’m… out.”

“As long as it’s not yours.”

It wouldn't be. He wrapped Lucy’s leash around his wrist to have something to do with his hands. “You be careful, yeah? I’ll see you around, Red.” Matt started to say something, then closed his mouth again and shook his head. “You be careful.” Frank didn’t know what else to say.

Matt’s fingers left the scarf to trail over the edge of the bedside table until they bumped into his rosary, and he shoved it into Frank’s coat pocket. “I’ll wait,” he said.

Goddammit, that was too much. Frank shook his head and left the room with a confused Lucy, and he knew Matt’s ears had caught the jackhammering in his chest. Zhang tried to talk to him as he strode past but he ignored her. He had to get out, he had to leave and stop thinking and just, yeah. Stop thinking. Then he’d start seeing who needed a visit from the Punisher, because that was what he did. That was who he was.

  
The scarf was soft and warm around his neck. Frank’s fingers ran over the Braille words on the rosary as he walked. He could read them without seeing them, now. Only those two words: _Hope_ , _Faith_. Goddamn altar boy.

**Author's Note:**

> Violence: no major character death, but bad guys and background characters die / are maimed.  
> Blood.  
> Hospital unpleasantness.
> 
> Also, don't be worried for them, i'm not leaving them there ^_^


End file.
